


should I, after tea and cakes and ices (have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?)

by silenceinmolasses



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Daydreaming, Episode: s01e10 Nelson v. Murdock, Fantasizing, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Friendship/Love, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Metaphors, Poetic, Purple Prose, Rimming, Run-On Sentences, Season/Series 01, Self-Indulgent, Sexual Fantasy, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21736693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silenceinmolasses/pseuds/silenceinmolasses
Summary: There are nights, sharpened by nasty bruises on the weak flesh and a looming freight of Hell‘s Kitchen‘s citizens, when Matt is feeling especially sorry for himself, huddled under the heavy weight of an old blanket from the college times.Those are the nights when Matt thinks about telling Foggy.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	should I, after tea and cakes and ices (have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_ by T. S. Eliot.
> 
> This is super indulgent. Hope you like it <3

There are nights, sharpened by nasty bruises on the weak flesh and a looming freight of Hell‘s Kitchen‘s citizens, when Matt is feeling especially sorry for himself, huddled under the heavy weight of an old blanket from the college times. Those memories, snow-soft: they help to breathe easier but you can‘t grasp them, can‘t unravel to revel in them.

Those are the nights when Matt thinks about telling Foggy. He knows it is irresponsible of him at best, it is too dangerous for Foggy to know who he is and what he does, Matt tells himself, repeats and reseals it in his conscience, traces the coarse sand with his fingers which try so hard not to tremble. He leaves notes in the margins of their friendship, cages his affections so that they do not escape after a golden egg of an easy night. 

Foggy was not built for him… for the life Matt chose, he didn’t choose it, so glimpsing the edge of all the violence, seeing its reflection in the mirror would distort what’s between them. 

Matt doesn’t want to be the reason for Foggy to be confused or scared, to be the one who rips his joy right out of his hands, who shuts the door on Foggy’s easygoingness which, yes, yes, it does warm him and makes him believe, but also makes him an irreplaceable attorney of Hell’s Kitchen. 

Matt maybe sniffs a bit, a lonely anchor in a large sea of his bed. He will meet Foggy tomorrow morning, the star of a best friend, its twinkling almost music, but this idea distantly disappears, dragged away by the cars down below.

Matt doesn’t meet with Foggy at evenings anymore. 

There never was such a big difference between day and night before.

The next night Matt’s sleepless and cold, his skin from the thigh up to his shoulders sensitive and exposed, tired and sad, his eloquence a myth, the only word Matt knows is pity, and this word is echoing along the walls of his psyche, a whisper and a resonance. 

His body is an alley and no one is invited. Foggy is not invited because alleys are dangerous. 

Foggy is invited in Matt’s apartment. Matt will print hundreds invitations, sign each of them with flourish, leave them all over his draughty and crumbling body for Foggy to get inside. 

Foggy gets inside so easily, Mat thinks, and he’s not regretful anymore, Foggy slips through the keyhole, he could be standing outside, humming a song under his breath, a siren, inviting Matt up and outside. 

If Matt’s not coming, Foggy’s leaving his comfortable place to go find Matt, search for the… the devil of a best friend, feet bare and wind-blown hair.

These ideas are laughable because _he mustn’t know!_ but Matt drunk too much coffee, so he thinks. 

Something bad would need to happen, something terrible and frightening, something that breaks all of Matt’s hard work, what is left is a handful of dust and then Matt is left empty-handed. The worst thing that could happen would be injured Foggy, especially because the Devil wasn’t careful enough, he was sloppy and homesick and daring. Matt touches the idea with his toe (Foggy’s body inflamed with bruises, his voice strained, his form under his skin that of a marionette’s) and casts it away immediately.

Foggy won’t be hurt, Foggy will be safe, Foggy… would find him hurt instead.

Matt prides himself in his stealth, his punch that is correctly molded and forces men bigger than him on their knees.

Pride is a sin.

There is someone in his city, hiding behind the horizon, tightening their fist and making the buildings smaller, the people fewer. It has been weeks and the Devil is still a clumsy calve, chewing on a regurgitated grass. And maybe, there could be a situation where Matt is not careful enough, where he is too excited by a fight and too clever because his raspy, threatening voice sounds just right.

Or or or… a trap.

The Devil could be lured into a trap. Matt winces. Like stepping on a loose floorboard because you are too used to plushy carpets, so embarrassing.

Matt thinks about being injured, his muscles tensing, ready for the pain. 

He has never been set on fire but he knows the choking smell of sizzling meat, of rats or dogs, and there would be nothing left to write about if he were in their place. 

He was drowned before, not deliberately, he had to fight his way up out of the wreckage. Matt didn’t know where he was, there in the darkness.

Matt grimaces, thinks some more.

He hates broken bones, the friction, every splinter feeling like a new break again and again, the long, long time it takes to heal, and then some.

The immobility through it all.

No, he doesn’t want breaks. 

Cuts, on the other hand… The biting, oozing, lemon juice pain of them, the type of annoyance that is raw and open, a body is a house that is being burglared. There are weapons, Matt knows, that could do a lot of damage, ancient swords that he would have never expected.

Now that we our pain and setting, what are we going to do with them?

Center stage, enter Foggy.

Matt comes back into his consciousness slowly, almost luxuriously, following the never-ending steam of crumbs that is Foggy’s heartbeat. He is disoriented for a moment, his college bed lumpy and uncomfortable underneath like it always is, so why is he surprised? The air smells mildly of herbs, expensive, and there’s a buzzing noise of a big electronic device in their neighbor’s room.

Matt grumbles, indulgent in his annoyance, wanting to go back to sleep, he is home so he should go back to sleep, and then his mind splits apart at the seams as pain, cold and sharp, seeps through the expertly done sutures.

He’s home, his familiar, lonely home, his consciousness spiky like a hedgehog, pin pointing at every little things he’s done as the Devil, , _oh, God_ Foggy didn’t know, he doesn’t know and now he does, Matt’s face naked, his mouth ugly, swollen with the lies. Foggy’s in the kitchen, he slowly turns around, and Matt almost whines, he has to say something, he has to speak…

“Got yourself into a bit of trouble, eh, Matty?” Foggy comes closer, his steps sure, and crouches in front of him. He sounds soft, caring, a pinch of sunlight underneath. Matt tries to laugh and moans at the accumulated tension in his cut-up flesh.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Got me all worried, finding you like that,” Foggy’s hand is sweet and damp, a half-melted sugar cube, and he brushes stands of hair off Matt’s bruises, “and here I thought you were running around with other friends.”

“Mhphg,” Matt lets out a noise which is a refusal, disbelief and atonement all at once. 

“Agreed,” Foggy snickers and pats the top of his head, “now, how are you feeling?”

“That’s not my proudest victory,” Matt answers. The tips of Foggy’s fingers barely brush the stitches on his face and it’s… good, its…

Matt thinks about a castle, defensive wall around it; his stomach swoops down as he imagines the height and the volume and the breadth.

How could it be attacked, if it’s protected that much?

“Don’t gloat too much,” Foggy chides, fixing the pillow. He smells like he’s been sitting on Matt’s chair for some time, perhaps playing on his phone or simply resting, waiting for Matt to wake, eyes closed and relaxed.

“Why not? Aren’t you proud of me?” Matt says, a bit boldly. He wants to tell how brave he was, how stubborn, he wants to hear Foggy tell him these exact things.

“I will take you ice-cream once there’s an acceptable amount of blood in your body. I am warning you, Murdock, no ice-cream for you before that exact time,” Foggy enunciates menacingly, his hands hovering above him, pressing gently on his unmarked patches of skin. Foggy leans above him, closer, checks the wounds. Matt shivers, maybe a bit in excitement, the same on that a flower feels when a bee flies nearby.

“Promise me a banana split and I won’t even get my stitches wet.”

Foggy finishes with another pat on the head.

“You give me the banana to me anyway,” he chuckles and his form gets farther.

He doesn’t leave, just steps back into the kitchen to stir the something on the stove, Matt relishes in the whisper the wooden spoon makes against something thickly chopped. A burst of flavor in the air, meat and honey and ….

Matt lies to Foggy for months and he gets the stew Foggy would make when he is ill or, or he feels bad. The meat takes hours to become tender and all the vegetables have to be put in the exact order at the exact time or else it will be nothing but a misbalanced mush. 

It’s always perfect.

“Did you use all of my spices?” Matt laments. This is not his lines at all, but Foggy laughs anyway.

“I also ate all your fruit,” he supplies (yes, his hair smells of orange, tangy and cheerful) and then says a little more seriously, “you barely have any groceries, Matt, seriously.”

“I guess I forgot,” Matt replies, though whatever he answers is unnecessary and redundant, whatever he says as an answer is an exercise in abundance.

Now that he is getting used to the etched pain (Matt nonsensically thinks about crayons, tries to remember the holey red colors of them), he notices that the air is displaced differently around the counter, there is something on top, many bags and boxes, it’s so overcrowded the apartment air is surprised. He smells grain, sandy and comforting and the acute, sudden whiff of sauerkraut.

Foggy already bought his groceries for him, he rushed to get him something from Nelson’s Meats (Matt ought to visit the place more often, and not only because the meat there is astonishing) and then the lovely little friend went to the market and spent more money than he usually does because Matt’s palate and his sharp, barbed tongue have always been spread out before Foggy’s inspection, even before he found Matt like a meat ready to be served.

“Thanks for, ah, going shopping for me. I appreciate it,” he continues, a bit shier, more aware of his place, right here, _right here_ , and Foggy makes a dismissive sound, soft and warm.

“Don’t worry about it. Actually, no, worry about it a lot, buddy, and next time don’t wait until there are actual spiders in your cupboard.”

“I didn’t see them,” Matt answers nonchalantly and Foggy snickers, putting something light in the pot. Bay leaves?

“Well, you had a spider web going from the corner to the coffee box, this really long strand.” 

“I didn’t know I still had coffee,” Matt helpfully interrupts.

“I brought you some chamomile tea for your sleepy time and some apple juice, in case you are going to spend the night writing poetry.

Not exactly writing, but Matt supposes there is some poetry in what he does. He nods earnestly and winces at the pull of stitches on his neck.

He is… not sure whether what Foggy says is a jab or not. He would understand it though, the sarcastic Foggy, sharp gold lining his mouth, who nods and doesn’t describe the movement, the petty Foggy, holding a cup of water just out of his reach and grunting dramatically as an answer, Matt would laugh, because it’s not childish to him, his pettiness is too-wet paint on paper. The angry Foggy, freezing cold, his heart locked up tight in his chest.

“Thanks for bringing wheat, I like it a lot, but I always forget to get it,” Matt says conversationally.

Foggy stops rummaging through the drawers for the utensils. 

“How do you know?” he asks slowly, “did you smell it or something?”

Matt lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding, clutching at it, wisps of it clawing his throat, Foggy and his questions an obstruction in his lungs. 

“Yeah, but not only. Also, the space they take up?”

No, this is all wrong. The purpose of this fantasy is to warm him up, it’s something far away from the rough brick texture of warehouses, something far away from the incenses and candles in the church (they smell sweet but feel heavy on his skin).

What is in his head and in his heart is purely for him, a distilled essence of his life, all of him in a drop. 

Foggy is … Foggy’s understanding is all for him. 

Something sharp winces in side of him, wiggling and slippery. How selfish of Matt.

How indulgent.

His bruises pulse above his cracked ribs, an old clock in an abandoned house, there’s all the peace and quiet that he needs, but he wants to hear Foggy’s laughter.

Matt is overwhelmed with his need, soaked up by it, the _want_ , he wishes desperately he told Foggy about his senses in college.

Matt didn’t wait until the things they don’t ask each other cumulate into an actual tension, its spidery legs unpleasantly sticky in the evenings they are both tired. Matt leaving the parties too early, getting distracted when Foggy’s speaking; all edges would be dulled with the truth.

So tell the truth he does. A moment for his hound nose to smell what treasure he has in the room with him, a moment to get used to Foggy’s attention, that honesty like sand, warmed by sunlight, the grains tickling his bare feet. 

Then the talk, which was a bit awkward, though Foggy was not angry at all, but curious, cautious. Exhilarated. 

After that it’s easy.

Matt finds him in the auditorium of hundreds of students, sits next to him, Foggy leans closer to whisper right into his ear whether he followed Foggy’s tummy gurgling. They rarely go to parties, Foggy might find beer pong fun, but he likes Matt’s ears healthy and unringing better.

There could have been cases when Foggy read Matt the textbook as he was taking an exam - doors separating them, but does it matter? - getting him marks that made him flush with pleasure and gratitude that even the confessional doesn’t manage to flush it out of him.

After the graduation, Matt paid for the drinks and the cake, all the desserts Foggy wanted: red velvet, angel food, brownie, pavlova; the whole night Foggy’s mouth smelled of sugar.

In the damp, warm summer night Foggy is sweet and soft against his side.

Matt smiles to himself. That’s the truth and he’s glad to think about it.

With the slight change in the script, the rushedly scribbled notes in the margins, now, what is it there right in front of him?

Foggy helps Matt dress once he looks less like he’s going to seep through the cracks in porcelain. Matt doesn’t feel chilly, he’s hungry, but he obediently snuggles into the hoody Foggy puts him in, wiggles his toes in the cable-knit socks he forgot he owned.

Foggy’s hands are large and warm on his waist as he brings the sweats up Matt’s hips; Matt burrows in his clothes, comfy clothes, comforting clothes, though once Foggy leaves back to the kitchen Matt is finds himself tingling with the cold.

Foggy helps him eat, brings the spoon up to his mouth, first to him and then to himself. There’s a bit too much ginger, Matt thinks, chewing, he suspects it must be revenge for coming with a billy-club to a kyoketsu-shoge fight. Maybe if Foggy gets the angry, wet, concrete-thick worry out of his system right now, they can find a more enjoyable conclusion to this mishap. 

Matt will certainly never let himself be that naïve again. He will certainly never force Foggy go through this again.

The idea that it could actually happen makes Matt want to vomit.

As he bites a Brussel sprout in half, Matt remembers that he doesn’t actually need Foggy to feed him, he can do it himself, his hands are only slightly bruised.

His mouth is too full to mention it, though, so Foggy continues.

“This won’t do. One Nelson care package coming right up,” Foggy says casually. 

“You want Grandma Nelson to finish the job? Don’t kiss and tell, Fog.”

Foggy is retaliation spoons him extra potatoes.

“You will tell whom it may concern all by yourself. Don’t think I am helping you,” he actually removes the full spoon from Matt’s mouth, leaving him gaping.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he relents and licks the utensil clean, “I will be a moody teenager who stays in his room during family dinners.”

“Oh, no, you will tell them all about your passionate love affair with a paper shredder,” Foggy says menacingly.

Matt groans again, louder this time.

They companionably finish up dinner, spinning theories how to explain Matt’s cuts (“I fell into a rose bush”, “A what now? And you say that being scratched by cats is unrealistic”).

Matt luxuriously lies on the couch, full with delicious food and a sweet Foggy for dessert. Though he is relaxed, slowly healing, keeping himself safe for once, Matt feels like he’s waiting, there’s impatience in each short space between heartbeats. He is at the cusp of a beginning, practically salivating for the inevitable.

Foggy comes back after cleaning up. He leans closer, breathing calmly. His inquisitive, searching gaze feels exquisite.

“Look at you, resting,” Foggy remarks with no trace of irony.

Matt inhales to answer something genuinely snarky, make him splutter and laugh, but then Foggy sighs softly and there’s his lips on Matt’s forehead.

Matt pretty much forgets what snark is. 

Foggy’s mouth feels like spring water. It flows down to the very top of his nose, a kiss on his cheek, a kiss right beneath his fluttering eyelashes. There’s Foggy’s lips right above his Cupid’s bow, the streaks of warmth plush and glossy.

Foggy pecks his relaxed mouth and Matt is ought to stop, this is the most affection Foggy has ever shown him, and he never implied he wanted anything else, though he is so outspoken otherwise (Foggy called them best friends, Foggy kissed him on his birthday, shy and sweet, Foggy fell asleep cuddled up to him.

Foggy followed Matt, helped him chase his dreams, and never looked back.)

And yet. And yet Matt is bruised and slightly cold, somewhere the window is open, he’s a princess and the world is a pea, and his desire bubbles cheerily in a cauldron on an open fire and and and.

Foggy kisses him again, wetter, more luxuriously, more insistent. There’s leftover sauce at the corner of his lips but the inside of his mouth, his teeth, taste of peach juice. Matt licks further, wetly taking up space, taking his fill. Foggy’s indulgent, he twines their tongues together, not stopping even when Matt whines deep in his throat, he eats up that sound and all the other noises.

Matt’s blushing uncontrollably, like a furnace, like the sun. Foggy’s knee bumps on the side of the couch as he leans closer, plush and flushed, and Matt suddenly wants everything, hungry and sating himself with abundance of desire.

Foggy knows, of course, he does. As he drags Matt’s sweats down, his underwear too, he’s slow, not out of carefulness or reluctance, but as a method of a tease, sudden drops of summer rain.

Foggy gently lifts his legs, spreads his thighs, moves closer in between, a solid body built of friendship. His gaze on Matt’s cock is just as tangible as his fingers on his ass, if not more.

“That’s okay? It doesn’t hurt too much?” Foggy asks as he kneels. His breath hits the crease of Matt’s thighs, and he shivers, gets distracted, hardens even more.

“No, it’s fine,” he answers then, quickly. Foggy snorts.

“Let’s say it’s fine,” he says conversationally, his fingers skimming through Matt’s pubic hair down until they reach his dick, “let’s make it good.”

There is a different kind of pain when Foggy’s hand envelops him, Matt notes distantly, moaning embarrassingly loud. He grips the sheets near his head, diving into a different kind of softness than the honey-sharpness of Foggy’s touch.

Matt’s impatient suddenly. He knows exactly what he wants and he tries not to show it but Foggy laughs anyway.

“Keeping secrets again, Matty?” he murmurs and Matt groans in protest, his face red, his neck red, his blush travelling down, he’s so wet in Foggy’s hand. The musk of his best friend arousal stuffs him full. 

Foggy stops jerking him off, stops pressing his thumb on the vein which makes Matt curl his toes. Foggy kisses his chest, in between his erect nipples, and moves even lower.

Matt bites his lip as his legs are put on Foggy’s shoulders and the sweet, clever mouth kisses right below his balls, wicked in its softness. 

Matt blinks, a bit shocked at himself, and yet so confident.

Foggy trails the tip of his tongue down to Matt’s hole, exhales slowly, like he’s warming the hottest part of Matt’s body. Matt clenches on nothing, grunting, the teasing’s a separate entity in the apartment, all smirks and almost-touches.

Foggy licks his hole, his tongue flat and the tip tickles the rim before pulling back to suck on the tight skin. Matt whimpers and moans, twisting this way and that but the cuts pull too, the wounds lick across his skin too. Pain is like a lighting fork at the beginning of a storm, his dick not being able to sustain the hardness Matt wants to give to Foggy, to wrap himself like a gift in arousal.

Foggy’s mouth is wet, sticky, his tongue a wiggling mass, almost inside of him, but not quite yet. He tastes him, feasts on him, spills cheerfulness in him, bypassing his other organs and going straight for the heart. Matt opens his mouth, mute from the onslaught, vibrating under it, jumping at the smallest presses of Foggy’s tongue. The sound of him jerking of, the thick and wet sounds, overwhelms Matt like too much condensed milk, like greedily eating a bowl of it.

One long, curious, stubborn lick brings Foggy right into him, his hole loose and needy enough. He clenches on the slick, lovely heat, his other muscles stiffen too and _it hurts_ and Matt doesn’t realize he’s been chanting “please, Foggy, Foggy, please” until Foggy whispers “it’s okay, I’ve got you,” and slips into his ass again.

A pearl in an oyster, that’s what Foggy is.

Foggy spends his sweet time on his knees and in Matt’s ass and Matt trembles at the vibrancy, at the insistence, at the kindness. His body burns, skin swells with irritation, in the same way it does under a midsummer sun, slowly but surely, and the pain is stuck in the flesh, refusing to come out, molds the rest of the body around it. Matt feels like a mess, drenched and heavy, needles in his torso keeping him together and needles of his senses preventing him from coming. 

Foggy’s tongue travels up to lave across his sack and Matt gasps. His throat is tired already, he’s already spent so much time moaning and groaning, his voice is sandpaper, but Foggy is not tired at all, his breathing and his heart steady, swift and unstoppable like hourglass; his lips must be bruised, swollen, thick with pollen, and yet he’s mouthing at Matt’s balls, 

And it’s hard to keep up that part of the fantasy that involves pain, Matt muses, the hand on his cock slippery.

Foggy’s patient, so patient, and aroused, and his arousal is also steady, burning on a small fire, boiling gently, jumping drops of liquid gold, never overflowing. Mat can taste the salty, phantom scent of his pre-cum and he and he and he… 

When Matt comes, it’s with a cry, his body tensing up, confused in its relief. He spurts cum all over his abdomen, the thick drops roll down his twitching, heaving body. Foggy hums, then chuckles, spilling over his fingers. He pets the sweaty skin just above Matt’s knee. The gesture is almost innocent, petal-soft playful, and Matt’s so gone he wants to will himself back to being hard, so that Foggy can lavish him again. And again.

And again.

Foggy doesn’t leave after, he helps Matt to his bedroom, to his bed. They banter as he searches for extra linen to make himself a bed on the couch, Matt’s fingers impatiently drumming on his silk sheets of his ridiculously large bed while Foggy tells him, no, he needs rest, Foggy will just crash on the couch. 

In his fantasy, Foggy has a toothbrush in the bathroom, extra sweatpants in the closet, and there’s thick curtains on the window to prevent the billboards light to get in.

Matt whines and moans into the same sheets he’s cuddled into right now. He hears Foggy puttering calmly in the empty apartment, drying the last clean dishes and putting the box of leftovers in the fridge.

Matt smiles and it must look awful. He’s as healthy as could be, strong, and the biggest coward imaginable. He would do anything to have Foggy like this, to love him and be loved in return, his body a fruit basket for Foggy to take from, dirty his hands with wild berry juice. Matt’s fingers twitch, nails biting moons into his palm. His life is pages of Braille, smooth from being read too many times, a choose-your-own-adventure story, half of the endings clumsily ripped off. 

Matt wants to check how this story ends, wants to be spoiled, wants to hear Foggy reading to him, wants him to moan his name.

Matt will never say, a foil skeleton that he is, knee deep in despair, elbow deep in hope.

Here’s Foggy standing behind his door. Matt stands up, socked feet quiet on the dusty floor, and crosses the threshold. Opens as many doors as he needs, tries as many handles as his hands find; all to get to sweet, smiling Foggy, who’s waiting for him right behind a corner.


End file.
